This is the guts of an Edo-era samurai. Controversial, tough, angry, highly skilled, and lost in a time of peace, the characters of Satsuma Gishiden tell a quasi-historical tale of social caste and brutal reprisal. Readers with a taste for Kazuo Koike's gritty Lone Wolf & Cub will go nuts for master gekiga artist Hiroshi Hirata's tome of samurai struggle. Hirata's art and calligraphy leap off the page during scenes of action, only to unfold upon a full bleed that looks like a fine plate print. It's art at its most expressive, accentuating the classic stoic samurai characters you've come to know, only with a little more true society thrown in to help the reader understand what it was really like to be a warrior without a war.